ELLIOTT CARTER (b.1908): String Quartets Nos. 1 and 5.

Catalogue Number: 02J087
Label: Naxos
Reference: 8.559362
Format: CD
Price: $11.98
Description: The huge (37 minutes) first quartet, which first established Carter as one of the major composers of our time sounds as fresh today as it always has, notwithstanding the more advanced idiom to which the composer progressed not long after. Lasting 20 minutes, the newest quartet, the Fifth (1995) is in 12 movements whose even-numbered members, described with tempo indications, suggest a suite-like succession of character pieces while the odd-numbered movements (Introduction and Interludes I-V) are random-sounding, evoking the sound of musicians practising snippets in rehearsal - all offering a sort of double focus in which the same material is heard in contexts of order and disorder. Pacifica Quartet.